Ohio State is in line to be the seventh or eighth seed in the College Football Playoff.
After watching the Big Ten Championship Game from home on Saturday, Ohio State’s seed in the CFP will now depend on whether the selection committee chooses to move the Buckeyes ahead of Penn State in its final rankings following the Nittany Lions’ loss to Oregon in Indianapolis.
Oregon is a virtual lock to be the No. 1 seed after improving to 13-0 with its win over Penn State while Georgia is a safe bet to be the No. 2 seed after defeating Texas – the previous No. 2 team in the rankings – in the SEC Championship Game. The final two first-round byes, which are only available to conference champions, will be filled by some combination of Boise State, Arizona State and Clemson; if they remain in the order they were ranked last week, the Broncos will be the No. 3 seed and the Sun Devils would be the No. 4 seed.
The first two at-large berths in the 12-team field are likely to be filled by Notre Dame and Texas. Ohio State isn’t going to jump the Fighting Irish unless the selection committee goes back on the word of chairman Warde Manuel, who said Tuesday that teams who didn’t play this weekend wouldn’t change positions in the rankings with each other. Either Texas or Notre Dame could justifiably be the fifth seed, but it would come as a surprise if the Buckeyes jumped the Longhorns, who have 11 wins to Ohio State’s 10 including a 31-12 road win over the same Michigan team that beat the Buckeyes in Columbus in their regular-season finale.
No at-large team that was ranked below Ohio State last week will jump it this week, so the Buckeyes can confidently begin preparing to host a first-round game in two weekends. What will remain uncertain until early Sunday afternoon is whether Ohio State will be the No. 7 or No. 8 seed in the 12-team field.
Both Ohio State and Penn State have a valid argument for being ranked above the other. Ohio State has a head-to-head win over Penn State in Happy Valley, and its second-best win over Indiana – who is also safely in the CFP field – is better than any win Penn State has this season. The Nittany Lions have 11 wins to Ohio State’s 10, however, and have only lost to CFP teams whereas the Buckeyes have lost to an unranked team.
A move up to No. 7 could mean a rematch with Indiana in the first round, as the Hoosiers are likely in line for the No. 10 seed unless they get jumped by Clemson, who has two more losses than Indiana and was ranked eight spots behind the Hoosiers in the penultimate rankings. If the Buckeyes stay at No. 8, they’re poised to host Tennessee in Round 1.
The field for the inaugural 12-team playoff will be announced during ESPN’s College Football Playoff selection on Sunday, which begins at noon.
My best guess for how the field will stack up:
1. Oregon (Big Ten champion)
2. Georgia (SEC champion)
3. Boise State (Mountain West champion)
4. Arizona State (Big 12 champion)
5. Notre Dame
6. Texas
7. Ohio State
8. Penn State
9. Tennessee
10. Indiana
11. Clemson (ACC champion)
12. SMU
If the selection committee stays true to its word and ranks the teams without trying to avoid first-round rematches, I believe this is what the final bracket will look like.
The debate between Texas and Notre Dame could go either way – Texas A&M is the best win for both of them, and Notre Dame has the far worse loss against Northern Illinois – but I lean toward the Longhorns falling behind the Fighting Irish, who enter Selection Sunday on a 10-game win streak with the best average scoring margin in college football.
The debate between Ohio State and Penn State could also go either way, but I lean toward the Buckeyes getting the nod between them based on their head-to-head victory over the Nittany Lions and their one-point margin of defeat vs. Oregon on the road compared to Penn State’s neutral-site loss to the Ducks by eight points.
The big debate entering Selection Sunday is whether SMU will get the final spot in the CFP over Alabama. You only need to look back to last year to find precedent of the selection committee sacrificing an ACC team for the Tide’s benefit if it believes Alabama is the better team, so I won’t be shocked if the Mustangs get the boot. But after SMU scored 17 unanswered points in the fourth quarter to nearly force overtime before yielding a 56-yard game-winning field goal to Clemson, I think that just might have been enough to save the Mustangs and get them in the field as the last team in.
